Public Bill Committee

[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]

The Committee deliberated in private.

On resuming

Q191The Chairman: I welcome our witnesses to this sitting of the Crime and Security Public Bill Committee. You will be getting questions from practically all the members of the Committee during your time with us. Sadly, we have to complete this part of our sitting at 2.30 prompt. Will our three witnesses please introduce themselves to members of the Committee?

Edmund King: My name is Edmund King, and I am president of the Automobile Association. I have been involved with monitoring clamping on private land for far too longwell over 10 years. I have made various documentaries on the issue, and representations to Governments of all shapes over the years, so it is an issue in which I have an immense interest.

Nicholas Winterton: Before I turn to Councillor Shona Johnstone, I have to say that Edmund King has anticipated what I was going to say next about briefly indicating an overview. You started by indicating the length of time you have been involved with the issue. Before I ask Councillor Shona Johnstone to introduce herself, will you complete the AAs overview of the Bill in 60 seconds?

Edmund King: Our overview is that something desperately needs to be done about wheel-clamping on private land. We get far too many cases of pensioners and individuals being fined £400, £500 or £600 for straying on to a bit of private land that might not have been well signed. The punishment does not fit the crime. In this Bill, licensing of companies itself will not, on its own, make a difference. There are two crucial points. For the Bill to be effective, the code of conduct, whereby you set levels of fines and a means of operation, is absolutely crucial. Licensing itself is not. Secondly, there really must be an independent appeals process as there is with on-street parking, which works very effectively. If our members get a ticket on the street, they can apply to the local authority. If they are not satisfied with the response, they go to a parking tribunal, and that works extremely well. For this legislation to work, you need both those things in place.

Shona Johnstone: I am Councillor Shona Johnstone, and I am a county councillor in Cambridgeshire. I was the lead member for environment and transport for some eight years, and introduced decriminalised parking in Cambridge city. I sit on the Local Government Associations regeneration and transport board, and have done since its inception.

Patrick Troy: Good afternoon. I am Patrick Troy, chief executive of the British Parking Association, which has established what one might describe as some self-regulation in this field, because we are very anxious to see regulation through Government in the area. We have what we call an approved operator scheme, of which thedare I say itgood guys are members, but we are concerned that the industry is beset with a poor media image, and that a number of clamping companies, and companies that deal with ticketing on private land, are not up to the same standard as members of the scheme, so we are keen to see movement.

Nicholas Winterton: The questioning will be started by Tony Baldry.

Q192Tony Baldry: My questions will be mainly for Professor King. I must declare an interest. I, and I suspect like other members of the Committee, am a member of the AA.
Clearly, there is a public mischief that needs to be dealt with, otherwise we would not be here, so I think that we can take that for granted. I understand that whereas at present individuals are licensed, all the Bill does is license businesses.
A report issued last year said:
The Home Office wants to set a maximum penalty chargelikely to be £135to stop cowboy clampers fleecing the public.
Clamping firms will also have to prove vehicles had breached parking restrictions and will be forced to make warning signs more obvious and visible.
A Home Office press notice stated:
Proposals within the bill will make it mandatory for all wheel clamping businesses to be licensed under the terms of a strict code of conduct. The code will include a cap on fines, time limits on towing cars unreasonably quickly after being clamped...Ministers are also looking to introduce an independent appeals process for motorists who feel unfairly penalised by firms and their employees.
None of that is in Bill. I was wondering, Professor King, whether the AAs lawyers could be kind and draft and send to us what the AA feels should be in the Bill. I am sure we shall get undertakings from Ministers, because they are decent guys, about the code of conduct and so forth, but the Security Industry Authority is not a subject for the Minister. Could you share with us, as soon as possible, what you believe should be in the Bill, simply to deliver what Ministersif one believes their press, which I am sure one doeswant to achieve?

Edmund King: I think that is vital, because without it this is just an enabling Bill that will not necessarily change anything. It will not work. If it is just about licensing a company, we licensed individual clampers in 2005 and, frankly, it was a licence to print money. Once they had a licence they could do what they wanted and if the police were called, they said they had a licence.
We have another concern about just licensing the business. From our investigations of clamping companies over the years we have found that once they are investigated by the media or organisations such as ours, they often change the name of the company and their post office box number, but tracking back, the same peoplethe same individualsare involved. We are concerned that even if the company were licensed, once it breached the licence the people involved would just fly by night, set up a new company and start operating again. That has certainly been the practice in the past. We need something to stop that happening.

Q193Tony Baldry: I return to my original point. The AA has big resources. Could your lawyers and your legal team give some thought to what you feel should be put in the Bill?

Edmund King: We can certainly give some thought to the areas that we would like covered. Regarding how it would fit with the Bill, I am afraid that even at the AA we do not quite have the legal expertise to do that, but we could outline the elements we feel should be covered, such as a maximum fine, for example, and the way that people can pay. Currently, people are forced to pay cash. Clampers in Doncaster wanted to take a three-year-old girl hostage until her mother went and got cash. There are all sorts of things that we would like to see in the Bill. Whether they are practical I do not know, but I would be willing to put those areas to the Committee.

Tony Baldry: If you come up with the areas, we will do our best to draft suitable amendments at least to test in Committee the extent to which we can include in the Bill the things Ministers are purporting to try to achieve.

Nicholas Winterton: May I say, Mr. King, that if you supply information it must be available to all Committee members? If you sent it to the Clerk of the Committee, that would be appropriate. Copies will then be provided for every member of the Committee, including the Chairman.

Q194Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): Mr. King, have you just saidalbeit couched in diplomatic termsthat the measures will not work and will be bureaucratic and a fudge? Should we not do it properly and look instead at only allowing local authorities, or people they have subcontracted, to carry out the work? I am interested in Councillor Johnstones response to that, and Mr. Troys, because I am sure that his association would not support that proposal, although he has a local authority background and may view it more sympathetically from that point of view.

Edmund King: We put other proposals to the Home Office that we felt would be more effective, but they were turned down. One was that you license the land rather than the companies. That is something that local authorities could have potentially carried out; they license other things, such as licensed premises, pubs and so on. There would then have been some control. If you license the land and there are abuses, you can withdraw the licence from that piece of land. We believe that would have been more effective. We are where we are with the Bill, and we would certainly like to see action that takes effect. In our view, no, the Bill is not perfect, but it is better than nothing. If we can build into the Bill safeguards on things such as a code of conduct and independent appeals, I think it could work.

Shona Johnstone: The main issue for me and the local government world, if we were to operate the sort of licensing system that you are suggesting, would be how it might be resourced and the priorities we would give to resourcing it as against resourcing public land, particularly highway land. Perhaps there is an alternative way. Very few local authorities use immobilisation, because for most of them the issue is keeping traffic moving, and if you immobilise a vehicle, it completely defeats the object. But there is a code of conduct on parking policy enforcement that we abide by, and using that on private land might be an alternative way forward.

Patrick Troy: I agree with the general sentiment. I have a local authority background; indeed, half the British Parking Associations members are local authorities, so there is a lot of synergy between what goes on in the local authority sector and what goes on in the private sector. However, my main concern is that the Bill does not address the whole issue, which is parking on private land. Clamping is one means of controlling parking on private land. There are a number of others, the main one being ticketing, which is a growing area, where private companies issue tickets to vehicles parked unlawfully. We need to tackle the problem of parking on private land and how it is regulated. Clamping is just one element. That is what I would like to see the focus upon, as well as the issue of an independent appeals system. You are absolutely right to draw attention to that, because the independent appeals system needs to apply equally to someone who is clamped, someone who has been ticketed or someone who has been removed.

Q195Tom Brake: Are you saying in effect that if this goes ahead, all that will happen is that people who were clamping before will switch to ticketing, so the problem will remain as big as ever?

Patrick Troy: I think there is a real danger of that and that we are distorting the market. The BPA is an accredited trade association, by which I mean that we are accredited by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in respect of the ticketing side. That means that our members must comply with our code of practice to gain access to the DVLA, or keep a record in order for them to conduct their business. At the moment, there is no regulation of clamping companies, so they sit outside that area. As a result, some ticketing companies start to think about clamping because they will be unregulated. My concern is that if you simply start regulating clamping and forget about the ticketing side, you will see a movement back and forth. The whole needs to be addressed.

Q196James Brokenshire (Hornchurch) (Con): I want to take a slightly different line of questioning on enforcement. For the licensing regime as contemplated by the Bill to work, it would have to be enforced in some way. The presumption is that it would be through the SIA, but there is also a clear overlap with the work of trading standards. How would the panel envisage the current proposals being practically enforced? Would they actually be enforced as anticipated?

Edmund King: That is a very important question. Currently, there is no enforcement at all. Some trading standards officers take an interest and some do not; the situation is, therefore, quite haphazard. Under the Bill, as I see it, if a company did not have a licence, it would be a criminal offence for it to clamp. Therefore, an individual motorist could ask to see the licence and if the company did not have it, the individual could call the police. Apart from that, I do not think that enforcement is inherent in the proposals.

Shona Johnstone: Issues around enforcement might replicate the position of local authorities with the independent appeals process. That would be the line that local government would, ideally, like to see taken.

Patrick Troy: The enforcement side is absolutely critical. We recognise that with our scheme we are moving forward significantly, as we speak, to include additional compliance auditing of our members, to ensure that they comply with our code, and to ensure that we have in place what we are calling a series of sanctionsoperators that do not come up to scratch and breach our code would have sanctions against them, which could result ultimately in expulsion. The solution is to base the model on the DVLA-accredited trade association status, where the SIA engages an accredited trade association, with a code of practice, which can demonstrate that that association is properly ensuring that each operator is compliant and that it is taking action when operators do not comply. That seems to be one way of enforcing the scheme without expecting the SIA to step in on every detail.

Q197James Brokenshire: It seems to me that there are a number of different issues: whether an individual officer who seeks to clamp or enforce a ticket is licensed, whether they are acting for a firm that is licensed and whether the land that they are seeking to enforce a ticket on is private land, because it may not be and, therefore, the local authority will need to become involved to assess whether it is private or public landthere is potential for disputes. It is not simply the licensing, but whether an officer is abiding by or in material breach of the code itself. Should they then be party to it? It seems that there are various associated facets, which would need a joined-up approach among the SIA, local council trading standards, and, potentially, the police as well.

Patrick Troy: It is very important that when an operator applies for a licence, they are doing so on land on which they are authorised to act. What I mean by that is that, at the end of the day, this is about landowners rights. The landowner will normally employ an operator. Obviously, the landowner can control the land themselvesthe pub landlord is a classic example. Generally, we are talking about private companies setting themselves up as operators, engaged by the landowner, hopefully through a competitive process, to carry out parking enforcement or whatever on their land. There has to be a link between the two. We require our members to identify the landownertheir clientas part of that process.

Edmund King: There are problems though. We have exposed cases of clampers clamping on land where they do not have permission to clamp. That is the criminal offence of obtaining money by deception, and clampers in Slough have been jailed as a result. However, it is incredibly difficult for the individual motorist to find out, after they have been clamped late at night and charged £500, who owns the land and who has authorised the clampers. In another case, a clamping firm clamped 100 cars parked in a disused office block in Bristol. It clamped the whole lot of them, but it did not have permission to clamp there. There are problems.
The problem we have seen so far, even with the ATA, is that even members of the ATA have not always followed their own code of practice. We have a number of cases in which the company has belonged to the ATA, but it has clamped and then towed away immediately to charge more money, which goes against the voluntary code of practice. That makes my point that a voluntary code of practice is nonsense; it will not work at all. It has to be a mandatory code and it needs an independent appeals process to police it. In terms of paying for that, with on-street parking, the independent parking tribunal is paid for from a proportion of the ticket paid on the street. I suggest that if a company wants a licence to clamp on private land, a proportion of the money for the licence should go to an independent tribunal to make it self-funding, because there is no way that the state should pay. It should come from the clampers resources.

Q198James Brokenshire: I should be interested to hear from Councillor Johnstone on that. It seems as though local authorities might get drawn into the whole enforcement process, even though it would seem to be the SIA that would take the lead, simply because local motorists do not know who else to make a complaint to. Generally, these sorts of things end up on the doorstep of the local council.

Shona Johnstone: You are absolutely correct. Local authorities often do get the flak, because there is not an understanding by the public about who controls the activities of some private companies. If there was a system of local authority licensing, it would be something that we would be prepared to consider and to take on if required to do so. Again, it comes back to resourcehow the system would be funded and financed. I would go back to the point Mr. King made about its being resourced through the companies themselves, not through the taxpayer and the general revenue system.

Q199Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con): Is there any merit in requiring those who have a licence to register their names and addresses with the local authoritymaybe it already happensso that a motorist who has been clamped in the way we have been describing can ascertain the identity of the company involved?

Edmund King: Under the current system, where the individual clamper is licensed, the motorist can check with the SIA whether that individual has a licence. Having said that, it is normally pretty difficult, because they normally clamp late at night and you do not see the clamper. Even if you are sitting in your own car with the engine running, they clamp you and run off. It is quite difficult to ascertain who exactly did clamp you and whether they have a licence.

Q200Mr. Hogg: Would it, therefore, be a good idea to require the occupier to display, on the premises where clampers operate, the name, address and contact numbers of the clamper, and if that is not done, to make that omission an offence?

Edmund King: I certainly feel that that would be helpful, because quite often there is a lack of information about what to do at midnight when your car has disappeared. The first thing that most people do is call the police to see if the car has been stolen, because quite often there is not that information on a sign that the car has been clamped and towed away. So, yes, I believe that the more information there is in the car park, the more useful it will be to the consumer.

Nicholas Winterton: Thank you. I am spreading the questions. I know that Tom Brake and Tony Baldry want to come back in again, but Andrew Rosindell has also caught my eye. Andrew.

Q201Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con): Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I think that probably all of us here understand why this is an issue about which people get extremely angry. We all get letters from constituents who have been clamped and charged huge sums of money to unclamp their vehicle when they have simply parked for a few moments, unwittingly, not knowing that the land that they are parking on is subject to clamping. Clearly, all three of our witnesses today have said that we need to go further, and that the Bill, as it stands, does not go far enough in making sure that it is effective.
My question is at the nub of the whole thing. Who is going to administer, regulate and control this? Should it be local authorities? Obviously, at the moment local authorities do not have a direct remit but, as Mr. Brokenshire has made clear, local authorities get the blame or the headaches, even though it is not necessarily down to them to deal with it. If there is to be an authority that regulates and manages this and deals with appeals, should it be local authorities or some other body, bearing in mind that local authorities work to boundaries? Companies and clampers will go beyond a boundary, and boundaries can sometimes be very peculiar. What would be the solution to that?

Shona Johnstone: I am not sure that giving the responsibilities to local authorities is necessarily what is required. From a local government perspective, the system of controls and independent appeals that we have to abide by, could be applied to the private industry. That is the difference: not necessarily that local government should take over responsibility for licensing, but that the code of conduct that we have should be applied to the private industry.

Q202Andrew Rosindell: So you would set up another body to deal with that?

Shona Johnstone: If that were within the SIAs remit. I do not think that just giving it to local authorities necessarily solves the problem.

Q203The Chairman: Edmund King, do you have a view, although you are not directly local government?

Edmund King: The beauty of the local authority doing it is that it knows what land is in its local authority. Therefore, if it oversaw a system, with the traffic penalty tribunalwhich deals with on-street parkingand if the system were linked to the land and the clamper had to pay the local authority enough money to get the licence to administer the scheme, it could be effective.
We have to understand the opportunist nature of clamping. We have to put this into context. The clampers make most of their money, not in car parks, but on a twilight piece of land behind the estate agents, next to the cinema, where it is unclear whether you can park or not. If there were really a parking problem there, they would put up a fence. If they had to go to the local authority to get a licence to clamp on that twilight piece of land and it cost them £5,000 or £10,000, they would not do it, because parking there is not a big enough problem to pay £10,000.
We felt that if there were a stricter licensing system based on the land, linked to the local authorities, it would drive out the two-bit cowboys, because it would not be to their benefit to do it because they would not make any money. That would get rid of them overnight. If they clamped without having the local authority licence, there could be a criminal prosecution and the police could take action.

Q204The Chairman: What does the trade association of the clampers think?

Patrick Troy: Mr. Rosindell puts his finger on the issue. The local authorities have boundaries and the companies do not, and that immediately creates a problem. We have given considerable thought to the solution, and the local authority one is clearly a solution. Our concern is that it has to apply across all local authorities, which means that it has to be mandatory; it has to be a duty on local authorities, not a power. Otherwise, clamping companies will simply move between local authorities in order to transact their nefarious business. There is a case for a national solution and that is probably best supplied through the SIA, issuing licences to companies but ensuring that there are some teeth to that solution. That is why I think that the only sensible way forward would be to use some kind of national structure, and the SIA comes close to fitting the bill.

Q205Tony Baldry: I was concerned by Mr. Troys suggestion that in this part of the Bill we were simply displacing clamping to private firms ticketing. It would be helpful if we could remind ourselves where we are. This is a trespass. It is a civil tort. It is not a criminal offence. Professor King in his opening comments talked about the punishment not fitting the crime. There is no constitutional right for a private citizen to punish another private citizen. We are where we are because of the case of someone who parked in Exeter: the divisional court said that if you park where a sufficiently clear notice is placed, you are inviting someone to clamp you. But that case gave no authority for fines. It gave no authority to impose a ticket. Otherwise you have to go to the small claims court or prove damage. What possible authority, Mr. Troy, do your members have to impose tickets on individuals? If you are to go around imposing tickets on individuals, clearly the Bill needs to deal with that as well, does it not?

Patrick Troy: Absolutely. It should deal with both issues in order to control both issues. This is an entirely unregulated sector. What the private companies do on private land is unregulated both from their perspective and from the publics perspective. Therefore, there needs to be some form of regulation. Through the DVLA route some legitimacy has been given to ticketers because only those ticketers that are members of an accredited trade association can access keeper details. That gives the ticketing fraternity some legitimacy. But the Bill needs to address both these areas if it is to control parking properly.

Q206Tony Baldry: But if I park on your land and you send me a ticket in the post, which I tear up and then throw away, your only redress is to issue proceedings against me in the small claims court where you have to prove that I caused damage by parking where I parked and you have to prove the measure of that damage. That is right, is it not?

Patrick Troy: That is absolutely right and it goes deeper than that. Our concern is that, currently in an unregulated environment, the person who committed that actthe driveris liable and the operator does not know who the driver is. So they will obtain keeper details from DVLA and will write to the keeper saying, The driver has committed a contravention here. Who is the driver, please? The keeper can say, I dont know who the driver was and not admit that they were the driver or that they know who the driver was. The difficulty is that eventually operators will say that if they cannot recover their outstanding due, they will have to switch to some other form of enforcement, which is clamping. That is what I was saying earlier about distorting the two sectors. There needs to be regulation for the whole sector and not just one element of it.

Nicholas Winterton: I shall take Tom Brake, but then I shall come to Shona McIsaac and I apologise for my delay in calling her.

Q207Tom Brake: Mr. Troy, you are clearly an enthusiast for the SIA to be issuing the licences. What evidence do you have that it has the capacity to deal with this effectively? Do our other witnesses have any evidence to underline the fact that the SIA might not have the resources to do this and might not be able to cope?

Patrick Troy: I would not say that I am an enthusiast for the SIA, but from a selection of options, it probably fits best. I cannot comment on whether it has the resources. Clearly the resources would need to be put in place but it does have the capacity to issue licences for this type of work at the moment in that it issues licences to individual clampers. So it is an expansion of that existing activity which does not seem to me to be a huge issue in that the people it is already dealing through issuing clamping licences, are the very people it will issue licences to under this proposal.

Shona Johnstone: I apologise if I sound like a cracked record, but if local authorities were to take over this responsibility, we would do it, but it would have to be a properly and fully funded scheme. As local authorities, we frequently take over additional responsibilities and they are not funded and we have to squeeze resources more and more. I do not believe that we would be popular with our electorate for taking over this responsibility if it was not properly funded.

Q208Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes) (Lab): My questions will mainly be directed at Mr. Troy. First, I want to ask about your association members. Can you give me some idea of how many complaints are made against your members, how you go about investigating them and what sort of penalties you have for misbehaviour?

Patrick Troy: Complaints are always in two forms. There are the complaints about the fact that a ticket has been issued or a clamp has been applied, and mitigation has been put forward by the recipient of that action. That is where we think that the independent appeal service can assist. When a motorist draws to our attention what would be described as a breach in our codesomeone who has flagrantly charged more than our code entitles them to, or has not put up sufficient signs in a car parkwe will then take action against that member in a variety of ways. As we sit here now, we have terminated two members membership as a result of information sent to us by motorists.

Q209Shona McIsaac: That company could still operate, but not as part of your association.

Patrick Troy: Absolutely.

Q210Shona McIsaac: So it is not really a sanction, is it?

Patrick Troy: If it is a ticketer, it is, because it cannot access the DVLA any more to continue its activity. If it is a clamper, you are absolutely right; it simply sits outside the scheme, which is why we are so keen to see some form of company licensing.

Q211Shona McIsaac:So in effect you have no control over your members who are clamping?

Patrick Troy: We have total control over our members. What we do not have is control over non-members, or those who seek to sit outside our scheme.

Q212Shona McIsaac: What I am getting at is that the clampers can do what they like. If they are no longer a member of your association, they can still continue doing the work that they are doing.

Patrick Troy: They can, but they will make commercial decisions about whether that makes sense from their point of view. By that I mean whether or not they will get business from other landowners.

Q213Shona McIsaac: You said that two of your members have been expelled from your association. I am trying to get an idea of the number of complaints that are made against your members.

Patrick Troy: I can give you an exact figure: 0.03 per cent.

Shona McIsaac: That is a percentage and not an actual number.

Patrick Troy: That is a percentage, yes. I think that it is about 400 to 500 complaints a year. That is not unexpected, because these are people who are unhappy about actions that have been taken.

Q214Shona McIsaac: I find that an astonishingly low number, because I got my office to go through my records to find complaints about clamping and charges, and I have had 17 cases in the past three months alone.

Patrick Troy: Are these complaints of members of ours or non-members? That is the critical thing .

Q215Shona McIsaac: UK Parking Control is one of your members. That company gives rise to the vast majority of complaints from my constituents. One has come in in the past couple of days. These notices look very formal. The charge is £100. You were talking earlier about what is a reasonable amount; frankly, my constituents do not think that that is reasonable. They describe these people as cowboys. They resent these companies, which they see as cowboys, using intimidatory tactics to get hold of their personal details.

Patrick Troy: Two things that consumers most when they use car parks, whether local authority car parks or private. One is the size of the penalty charge and the other is the lack of signage. We tackled those two issues head on in our code of practice. You will find that the charge is more or less similar to that in the local authority sector. We try to base it, as far as possible, on that.

Q216Shona McIsaac: I do not think that any of my local authorities charge a flat rate of £100 for a parking contraventionabsolutely not.

Patrick Troy: It is usually discounted by 50 per cent. so you need to compare the two. The current rate in London is £120 discounted to £60.

Shona McIsaac: That is London.

Patrick Troy: Yes, I do not know the rate outside London off the top of my head. What I am saying is that, in trying to arrive at a charge to put in our code, we have tried to ensure that it reflects as far as possible what the local authority is charging.

Q217Shona McIsaac: The notices that people are getting are actually a parking charge, not a penalty notice. There is a distinction.

Patrick Troy: Absolutely.

Q218Shona McIsaac: So this is the parking charge. My constituent says in his letter that he found it somewhat excessive to be given a parking charge of £100 for 40 minutes parking at a fast food outlet. The local authority charge is around £1.10 an hour. That is what people are comparing it against.

Patrick Troy: Absolutely.

Q219Shona McIsaac: It raises questions about how the public are going to distinguish between the two regimes, which is something that Councillor Johnstone may wish to answer.

Patrick Troy: The lack of understanding among the public of the distinction between a local authority-maintained car park and a private car park is a major concern. I do not have the solution for that, because you will always have private car parks and you will always have local authority car parks. In developing our code of practice, when dealing with the level of charge, we tried to reflect what goes on in the wider regulated world, and I think we have done that. That is not to say that no more can be donemore can certainly be done. I have said several times that our scheme is not perfect, but at least it is doing something to try to bring people in line with what one might regard as some common sense.

Q220Shona McIsaac: In your introduction you talked about your industrys bad image and about some of the bad practices, but my constituents are complaining about the practices of companies that are meant to be some of the best, according to your association. The company under discussion covers McDonalds and operates throughout the UK.
I do not know if the same company is responsible for motorway parking. A number of constituents have told me that, while driving at night, they have parked for a little sleep. The notices are not visible, particularly at night, and they are usually small, cheap and very rarely near the entrance to a car park. I will read out what my constituent says, because it summarises part of the problem with both clamping and parking chargesthe same industry using those two different ways to get money out of people. My constituent describes the
seeming increasing number of private parking companies who seem to somehow get away with putting up a couple of CCTV cameras, some cheap signs and by contacting the DVLA,
he says, merrily extort money from people who do not know the law.

Patrick Troy: There are two points there. One is that the whole purpose of establishing this scheme is so that you and members of the public can let us know if there are problems of that nature. Our members will not be perfect either, so we need to have in placeand we do have in placea process by which we can ensure that those operators will comply with the code. They will not be compliant in all cases.

Q221Shona McIsaac: Is it part of your codethis relates across the board to clamping and anything we introduce in the futurefor companies to put on parking charge notices or anything else what people can do to seek redress? Why is it not part of your code to say, If you have a complaint about this charge, please contact us? There is nothing.

Patrick Troy: There certainly should be, and I would be interested to see that. There is a requirement in the code for the operator to have in place a dispute resolutions process, whereby the recipient of the ticket is able to discuss the issue with the operator. As I said earlier, I do not think that that is sufficient; I think that there needs to be an independent appeals service to deal with that, because clearly the operator has a vested interest in the outcome. If that information is not on there, please let me know and I will investigate.

Shona McIsaac: It certainly is not on here. UK Parking Control Ltd is one of the biggest private parking companies in the country, I believe, and as I said, one of its biggest customers is McDonalds, so if it is issuing these notices, it is doing so the length and breadth of the country and is therefore breaking your code of conduct.

Patrick Troy: Please let me have that notice.
You mentioned fast food outlets. The other point that I was going to make is that landowners have a role to play in this too. Landowners often require the operator to carry out certain activities, even though the operator might advise against doing so. From a commercial perspective, I would not have thought that there was any value in a company hugely penalising its customers, so the company must think that it is penalising people who are not its customers. We clearly need some proportionality. In trying to find a resolution to this problem, we need to understand that it is not only the operators who are involved, but the landowners who employ them.

Nicholas Winterton: Shona, would you like a response from Councillor Johnstone? I ask only because Mr. Troy has mentioned certain regulations and standards, and I wonder whether Edmund King and the Councillor Johnstone have any evidence that would either substantiate or in fact contradict what Mr. Troy has said in answer to your question.

Shona McIsaac: That is absolutely fine, Sir Nicholas.

Edmund King: We have a lot of evidence that big car parking companies do not abide by the code. I have here a receipt from Parking Control Management. The other issue relating to charging is double-charging, and in this case, there is a wheel clamp release fee of £130. Despite the fact that the individual in the case was going to the library to pay the 15p fine on her library books and was only away for 20 minutes, she was also charged a £200 removal fee straight away and then a £40 storage fee. So the total charge was £370. That was automatic double-charging. Again, there is nothing whatsoever on this receipt that says anything about an appeal or anything else.
That is a major problem. Many of the companies can just make up the charges. We know of companies that, if you call the police, will impose a call police nuisance charge, which can be anything from £50 to £150. Another company will have a swear box charge that they add on to a charge. That shows that the charges are absolute nonsensepeople just make them up. We have certainly had complaints about members of the accredited association not abiding by the code of conduct. That makes the point that any code must be absolutely mandatory and it must be enforced.

Brian Iddon: I am getting the impression that wheel-clamping should be banned completely and that we should move entirely to a ticketing programme. If someones vehicle is causing an obstruction, the police will remove the vehicle, whether it is a private vehicle or a company vehicle. The police would have the power to remove a vehicle under the law as it stands now.
I do not see any point in allowing clamping to take place. What is the opinion of our three witnesses? I ask, because the advantage of moving to a ticketing system is that, in order to get the information from the DVLA, you have to be a pukka company and not a cowboy company. If you laid down a code of conduct, you could police that code of conduct.

Edmund King: If the problem is illegal parking, to immobilise a vehicle to ensure that it is parked illegally for a long period of time is absolute nonsense. The courts in Scotland in 1991 actually found clamping on private land to be extortion and theft. In our view, many cases in England and Wales are extortion and theft.
When wheel-clamping was outlawed in Scotland, landowners employed other means to protect their land, which they have a right to domotorists should not park wherever they want, whenever they want; we are absolutely clear about thatbut there has not been a massive outcry in Scotland since 1991 when clamping was outlawed. People put up fences or tackle the problem in other ways. I would suggest that in a civilised society, immobilising a pensioners car and towing it away after 20 minutes is outrageous. The best thing would be if clamping could be outlawed.

Q222The Chairman: But you did not answer, Mr. Troy, nor other witnesses, Shona McIsaacs sensible question: what about somebody who parks on land after dark, can see no sign, no indication that it is illegal to park there

Shona McIsaac: Such as a motorway service station.

Nicholas Winterton: Is there no responsibility on those who either own the land or will be clamping or ticketing on the land to put up signs that are visible both day and night, to ensure that people are aware of the problems they might encounter if they park there?

Edmund King: That is a valid point, but in some of these cases we have evidence that it is not in the interest of the landowner to have clear signs. Many of them have deals with the clampers whereby they are paid £50 a clamp. If there are clear signs, motorists will not park there and the landowner will not get their money. In many cases it is not in their interests. We also have evidence of other cases where, if there are signs, the clamper will park their vehicle in front of the signs to hide them, otherwise people would not park there.

Shona Johnstone: That is the nub of the problem. On highway land, for on-street parking, the signage is very clear. There is a clear and independent appeals procedure. People know before they parkthey can see the signs. If the signs are not there, any parking charge is invalid; if the signs are there it is very clear. They know what the rights of appeal are and there is an independent procedure. Where there are no signs, they do not know what the position is. The public are very unclear in that situation. Is it highway land? Is it not highway land? Is it private land? What is it? If they do not know they get confused. Inadequate signage is one of the biggest problems.

Q223Mr. Hogg: I want to pose three questions. First, following on what Brian Iddon said, can any of you identify any good reason why this form of clamping should not be outlawed?
Secondly, assuming that we are going to go on with off-street clamping of the kind we have been talking about, would it not be a good idea to make it an offence for the occupier not to display in a visible way the name, address and phone number of the clamper, so that if he does do it late at night he is quite likely to be disturbed?
Thirdly, the point that you are all making is about the high level of charges. One thing that occurs to me is that we are talking about the legal concept of licence. If we are going ahead with wheel-clamping, there is nothing to stop us providing a right for a person to go to the magistrates court to require the repayment of any sum in excess of what the court deems to be reasonable. That would be wonderful because there would not be very much by way of legal charges if it was done in the magistrates court. Could I have your views on those three suggestions?

Edmund King: On the first point, I made the case that clamping is illogical.

Q224Mr. Hogg: Could we ask the other two witnesses and then move on to the other two questions and see what the collective view is?

Shona Johnstone: From a local government perspective, given that this is about private land as opposed to the public highway, the LGA does not have a view either way on greater regulation as opposed to making clamping illegal. The vast majority of local authorities do not use immobilisation or clamping in any form, except perhaps as the last resort. Their view on parking enforcement is that they want to keep the traffic moving, and to clamp simply defeats that objective.

Q225The Chairman: Could you belatedly answer Shona McIsaacs question about the level of fines that local government impose and how they compare with the charges imposed by clampers and ticketers?

Shona Johnstone: It varies from authority to authority. Speaking from recent personal experience, in Cambridge the charge is £50, discounted to £25, so that gives you an idea. Clearly, the position in large urban areas is rather different to rural areas, so the level of fines will vary.

Patrick Troy: Superficially, it is very attractive to ban clamping. Coming from a local authority background and hearing what Shona had to say, I think that clamping is disappearing on the public highway, but there are two reasons why I suspect clamping will remain

Douglas Hogg: Unless outlawed.

Patrick Troy: Unless outlawedon private land. One reason for that is the driver liability issue to which I referred earlier. If the only solution to control parking is issuing a ticket, and there is no legislation to deal with who is liable for that ticket, there will be no way of properly enforcing on private land. That is a dilemma for landowners who want, quite rightly, to protect their land. The best example of that is your own front drive. You would want someone to do something about someone parking on your front drive, and if there is a loophole in the law, which is there is at the moment in respect of liability, then people will start to look at clamping as the alternative.
The other reason is the problem of persistent offending, if ticketing is the solution. If you ticket someone who is, for whatever reason, not properly registered at DVLA, it is impossible to recover an outstanding debt and they will of course continue to park unlawfully. Clamping is the only solution there. Actually, that is currently in operational guidance from the Department for Transport for local authorities, but that is really the only circumstance where clamping should be used.
It is true that in Scotland clamping has been outlawed. You may ask yourselves whether, if it is outlawed in Scotland, it should be outlawed in England and Wales. I do not have any research to back this up, but anecdotally what some landowners with private operators do isbecause they do not want to ticket for the reasons I have just explainedremove the vehicle from the car park, store it off-site and charge significantly more to release that vehicle back to the individual. That is, perhaps, a much more disproportionate response to a small parking contravention than clamping might be. So, it is not necessarily the case that it has worked in Scotland, but, unfortunately, there has been no research into that. It would be interesting to do.

Q226Mr. Hogg: There were two other questions about display of name, address and telephone number, and whether we should have some redress in the magistrates court to recover charges deemed to be unreasonable.

Edmund King: On the second point regarding the signs, I think that that is a very helpful proposal, but I wonder whether the onus would be on the landowner, or the licensed clamper.

Q227Mr. Hogg: I thought it would be on the occupier, because the occupier who does not ensure that the name and address is displayed would be committing an offence under the existing offence provisions, which are provided for in the Bill.

Edmund King: I think that is a helpful suggestion. In terms of the courts you have to be careful, because the cases that we have had involved a lot of pressure and stress on the individuals going through the courts. Yes, we have won cases, but it has taken time. We have also had people stop

Q228Mr. Hogg: But you would, if you got results in the magistrates court, begin to establish a tariff, which would constitute a precedent. You can see the advantage of that. You, as a motorists organisation, could fund a number of those cases and thusthink of the credit you will getyou will be building up a tariff.

Edmund King: I can see that point, because small claims courts do not set a legal precedent and we have had a number of successes there. The problem often is with ticketing, not clamping. We had a case recently where someone was trying to appeal, but eventually gave up because she was worried about bailiffs being called in and her and her husbands credit rating. She gave up the case and paid under duress. Our view is that individuals in this society should not have to go that far. There should be an easier, independent tribunal, as there is with on-street parking, so that individuals are not put under that level of duress.

Shona Johnstone: With regard to Mr. Hoggs second question on signage, at the moment is there is not equity across the piece. There is one set of regulations and code of conduct for local authorities, where signage is very clear, and another for private land, such that it is often unclear whether or not it is private land. From a local government perspective, we would argue for a level playing field. In relation to the high level of charges, local government would always argue that the charge should be proportionate to the offence.

Q229Mr. Hogg: That needs a tribunal to determine.

Shona Johnstone: Yes.

Patrick Troy: I agree with that approach. Our code currently requires the operator to put in place signs indicating his or her name and address and contact details. We go further than that and say it should not be a premium telephone line or a mobile number; it should be a landline, so that the individual can make easy contact with the clamper. It would make a lot more sense for the landowner to be required to do that. Operators would not have to do it, so I am sure they would support such a measure. That seems to be sensible.
I agree about the level of the charge; it has to be proportionate and reflect local conditions, and it should reflect what is going on in the wider community. It comes back to what the consumer regards as fair. If consumers see a particular penalty charge in a local authority car park, they will not understand why in the car park next door the charge is significantly higher orless likelylower.
There needs to be some uniformity for the public to understand, but not to mimic that situation. That comes back to Ms McIsaacs point, that you cannot have a situation where private operators mimic local authority legislation in issuing penalty charge notices, that appear to the consumer to be from someone in public authority. There is a balance to be struck between those two things.

Q230James Brokenshire: I want to come back to the provisions in the Bill that, pursuant to a firm being licensed, it may be prescribed that it is part of a nominated body or scheme. I understand from that, for example, that the BPA could be a nominated body or scheme, with your code of practice being prescribed as per the terms of the licence. What would be the situation if a complaint comes in, either to the SIA or to you, that a firm has not complied with the terms? Should you or the SIA determine what the sanction for that breach should be? What notification requirements do you envisage, so that if somebody notifies you of a complaint, you refer that on to the SIA?

Patrick Troy: It should be a two-tier solution. Let us call it an accredited trade association, which the BPA is at present. Others may well arise, which we would welcome, as there needs to be some competition in this area. The association must have a complaints and sanctions process and must deal with the operator from a credibility perspective, if nothing else, and end the operators membership, if it is not compliant with the code. But there needs to be an appeals process, a second tier of referral to the SIA, if the association is not carrying out that function sufficiently. The SIA does have a little bit of a regulatory role over the association in that situation, to ensure that it is carrying out a robust complaints and sanctions process to make sure, first, that the consumer is benefiting from that activity and, secondly, if there are other associations, it is applying more or less the same rules as the others to each situation. You cannot have a situation in which one association is more lax than another in terms of applying sanctions against an operator.

Q231James Brokenshire: So you see the SIA effectively policing you, as the association, as well as the potential licensee, to ensure that you are doing your job properly, so, ultimately, the SIA could take away your accreditation in those circumstances?

Patrick Troy: Absolutely, and that is exactly what happens with the DVLA, which monitors our performance as its ATA. Ultimately, if it is not happy about the work that we are doing on its behalf, it can sever that link. I hope that it would not and would put in place some improvement processes, but it is same model.

Q232James Brokenshire: Two points come from that. First, the point that Mr. King raised about a company or organisation re-registering as a separate body even though the membership, the directors and those controlling that entity may be substantially the same. Do you have a fit and proper person test within your code, or do you see that as falling more heavily on the licensing process itself?
Secondly, does your code have any provisions that control the means by which one of your members can solicit private land to control? I ask that because I have heard of improper practice where pressure is put on landowners through threat or menaceYou will allow us to control your land for parking purposes, wont you? Is your code wide enough to cover such situations? It would be interesting to hear from the other panellists on whether they have experience of such practice being used.

Patrick Troy: Yes, in answer to the first question, we do have a fit and proper process, in the sense that we have records of individuals who manage companies who are responsible for carrying out, on a personal as well as on a company level, the requirements of the code. What I mean by that is that if they decide to leave the scheme or they are expelled from the scheme and reinvent themselves in another company, we know the individuals associated with the previous company and so can take action. That is not entirely closing the loophole and I am very conscious of that, but at least we have something in place that enables that to occur.
On the second point, I am not so familiar with circumstances where landowners have had an arm twisted behind their back to allow operators to carry out enforcement on their land. I am aware of operators approaching landowners to say, Let us manage your land for you and well give you £50 for every clamp that we apply. That is unacceptable and something we are trying to stamp out of the industry at the moment. I have to be honest, that is not in our code but we want to put it in the next version of the code. As you self-regulate, you discover another way round that problem and we need to take action.
Finally, there is a problem with what we call third-party enforcement, where a company will act on behalf of one of our members. We say in our code that that third party has to be fit for purpose. It must carry out enforcement in compliance with our code. We have said to the member, If they dont, youll be responsible and we will treat that as a breach of the code by you, not by that third party. We are starting to see some of these issues and loopholes emerge and we are starting to close them.

James Brokenshire: I should be interested in hearing from the other panellists.

Nicholas Winterton: We have about 10 minutes. Two more people have caught my eye and want to ask questions, so could you be brief?

Shona Johnstone: We have only anecdotal evidence.

Nicholas Winterton: That was very brief.

Patrick Troy: One of the problems is that there are far too many loopholes, whether with the ATA and how it is policed or with the SIA. I think it is fair to say that the SIA to date, since the Private Security Industry Act 2001, has done the minimum and has not shown any real enthusiasm or resource to get involved in appeals. It is only if the member is licensed. Without a change to the structure of the SIA and a boosting of its remit, I think it would be infeasible to see it acting in that way.
On the landowners, I think it is more the case that quite often the landowner is in cahoots with the clamper for their own interests, and that leads to abuses.

Q233Andrew Rosindell: The Bill represents an opportunity for Parliament to deal with the situation. People are angry, and we need to come up with a practical solution that will solve an ongoing problem that creates huge anger among our constituents. I am sure you agree. This is an opportunity and we should seize it. We need to take some of the things that have come out of this discussion away with us. Is there a consensus between the three of you that, at the very least, there should be a level playing field, as Councillor Johnstone said, in relation to signage?

Edmund King: Yes, I think we are all agreed on that.

Nicholas Winterton: Even Mr. Troy?

Patrick Troy: Absolutely.

Q234Andrew Rosindell: One proposal that was mentioned earlierI would like some specific views on itwas that the registration of the land itself could lead at least part of the way towards solving the problem. Would the three witnesses support that if it was introduced?

Edmund King: That certainly was our position in the Home Office consultation, and we put it forward. But as I understand it, that provision has not been considered for the Bill.

Andrew Rosindell: If it was, would the three of you support it?

Shona Johnstone: I do not think that the Local Government Association would oppose it. The issue would be that if it was to be done by local government, there would have to be proper funding for it.

Andrew Rosindell: But the principle would be fine?

Shona Johnstone: The LGA would not oppose it.

Patrick Troy: We certainly would not oppose it either. It is clearly an issue of whether there is sufficient funding to do it in a comprehensive way across the country.

Q235Andrew Rosindell: Finally, we have talked about the need for an effective code of conduct. Local government already has standards for that. Is there any good reason why local authority codes of conduct and the rules they abide by should not simply be the same for private operators? If everybody had a level playing field and had to operate by the same rules, would you support it?

Edmund King: The AA would certainly support that.

Shona Johnstone: Yes, there is no reason whatsoever.

Patrick Troy: Yes, and that is exactly how we tried to develop our own code of practice.

Andrew Rosindell: So we have consensus on those three key areas.

Nicholas Winterton: That is a very happy situation.

Q236Mr. Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent, South) (Lab): My first observation is that although I am sure that local authorities do a very good job in the main, there are exceptions. Indeed, not many months ago there was a huge outcry in Stoke-on-Trent when the local authority sign in one of the city centre car parks led everybody to believe that there was free parking after 6 pm, until they all came back to find tickets on their windscreens. There is some work to be done to ensure that local authority signage is up to an acceptable standard. I would be interested in any comments you may wish to make about that.
My main substantive question relates to the way we are looking at the whole issue. Are schemes of registration, land registration and so on not a far too complex way of resolving the problem? Ultimately, it is about landowners looking for the cheapest wayor a revenue-making wayof solving their parking problems. Should we not put it back to the landowners? We should say, If there is a private piece of land that you dont want people to park on, fence it. If you are a local business and you only want people who use your business to park on your land, put a barrier up so they will need a ticket or a code to exit. If it is a commercial private car park, take a barrier-type approach with a clear display of charges when you approach the barrier. Are we not looking at things from the wrong point of view? Would it not be better to put the onus on the landowner to take whatever action is appropriate to resolve the problem, even though it might cost them some money, rather than the poor motorist?

Edmund King: I concur with those conclusions. Having looked at the problem for over 10 years, having seen legislation come in and having seen numerous consultations on it, I can say that many of the proposals would improve things in one aspect and then transfer the problem elsewhere. We have heard that from clamping it goes to towing or to ticketing. Unfortunately, no matter what legislation we bring in, it still appears that there would be loopholes. My view is that we should look to what happened in Scotland and try to change the law in that way.

Shona Johnstone: With regard to the second part, that would certainly be one option. On your first issue, yes, I am sure we can all find examples where local authorities have not always got it right.

Patrick Troy: May I echo that point? The point I tried to get across earlier was that no one is perfect in the parking management world. I have been involved in it for the past 25 years. There will always be circumstances where a silly decision is made. That is why the independent appeals service is so important to try to close down those issues. As I understood your question, it was why cant we just do away with all this and put barrier systems in place? The problem with that is that it is horses for courses. The best example was given to me early on in my current post. We manage motorway service areas. They are managed by private operators. You simply could not have a barrier system. You have to allow the free flow of traffic into motorway service areas. At the other extreme is the pub landlord with a small car park with only five or six spaces but which is close to a big retail outlet or a station. It is not practical for that landlord to put in a barrier system. There has to be some other solution in certain circumstances. I would accept that those circumstances are perhaps not always right at the moment.

Q237Mr. Flello: Perhaps there would be a greater burden of cost on the pub landlord with only five or six parking spaces, but nevertheless it would be doable. In the first example, given that most motorway service stations have a long slip road that you can either turn off to park or carry on down to fill up with fuel and then rejoin the motorway, I am not sure that the proposal is that impracticable for a motorway service area. I take the point that there are areas where you could look at it, but surely it is much simpler to say to the owner of the land, You resolve the problem, but you cant clamp, you cant ticket. If you dont want any parking there, fence it off. If you are not bothered about it, fine, let people park there.

Nicholas Winterton: Is there any final comment that our witnesses would like to make in approximately 20 seconds each, as we have less than two minutes until half-past 2?

Edmund King: First, if this goes ahead we must have an independent appeals process. Secondly, we must have a mandatory code that has maximum fines and conditions. Thirdly, it should also apply to ticketing and not just to clamping. Otherwise it will just transfer the problem.

Shona Johnstone: The local government perspective is that we would want to see a level playing field between the public and private sectors. If there was to be a local authority system of licensing and regulation, it would have to be properly funded.

Nicholas Winterton: You have made that point many times.

Shona Johnstone: I apologise.

Nicholas Winterton: Having come initially from local government myself, I have much sympathy, if I am allowed to express that view from the Chair.

Patrick Troy: I have two simple points. Any legislation should apply to the whole of the private parking sector, regardless of how it is enforced. The other point, which it sounds as if we are very much agreed on, is that having an independent appeals service is fundamental to the fairness and public perception of the service.

Nicholas Winterton: On behalf of the Committee I thank our three witnesses for the very full, informative and most helpful evidence they have given us. There is even some ground between the trade association and those who represent local government and the motorist. Thank you for coming to give evidence to us today.

Nicholas Winterton: I welcome both Ministers. It is pleasure to have you responding to questions from other members of the Committee. I do not think we will be interrupted by Divisions in the House and we can continue until 4 oclock. If we need to go on a fraction longer, I am prepared to use my discretion, but I do not believe that will be necessary. As we will be covering a wide range of subjects with the Ministers, it would be good to deal with the subjects in the order that they appear in the very helpful briefing paper that has been prepared for our use. The first subject is stop-and-search powers.

Q238James Brokenshire: I will keep my comments brief. I appreciate that we have a lot of ground to get through. I obviously welcome the desire to reduce the elements of bureaucracy associated with stop-and-search and we will get into the debate about that in due course. What was the thinking behind deleting the provisions relating to the recording of a persons name? Obviously there may be a risk that someone may be stopped and searched regularly, so how could one assess whether someone was being picked on if information was not recorded in that way? I would be interested to hear the thought processes behind that.

The Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism (Mr. David Hanson): May I say, Sir Nicholas, what a pleasure it is to be before the Committee for the first time in what will undoubtedly be a fruitful few weeks. Mr. Brokenshire makes an important point. At the moment there is no requirement for an individual to give their name to the police when stopped or searched. If an individual was stopped in Parliament square today they would not have to give their name to the police. We have decided to remove that piece of information from the bureaucracy. The police can ask for the name and can record it if they so wish. But that gives rise to the important point that Mr. Brokenshire raised. An individual could be in Ealing at 10 oclock, in Parliament square at 12 and in Barking at 3. They could be stopped three times across London and wish to make a complaint against the police. Because we have kept in the legislation the need for the identified officer who is carrying out the search to record the date, the time and the place, if a complaint is made by an individual, we would be able to establish, through that electronically garnered information, which officer undertook the stop-and-search at which time and at which place. If something illegal was found as a result of the stop-and-search, the officer would make some sort of charge. There is a defence for those who wish to make complaints. There is also a requirement for the officer to ask for that information if he or she feels that it is relevant to the investigation.

Q239James Brokenshire: In other words, you are saying that if a complaint is made, there is a way to track the individual back to the relevant police officer. You think that it would be done on that basis rather than recording the information if it had been volunteered.

Mr. Hanson: Let me put it into a very simple context. If David Hanson was stopped in Parliament square at 2.30 on a Thursday afternoon and felt aggrieved and made a complaint to the Metropolitan police, there are very few chances that there would be more than one officer stopping and searching in Parliament square at 2.29 pm on a Thursday afternoon. That could be traced through the electronic collection of data. Certainly now in some cases, and, I hope, by the time the legislation is enacted, we will be able to record automatically officer identity, date, time and place when the information is sent back to headquarters by electronic handsets or through the Airwave system. I think the safeguard is there for the complainant. If the police officer wishes to ask for their name, the individual does not have to give it, so we have taken that step out. Ultimately, if a serious offence is committed, that would move to stage 2 of the stop-and-search process.

Q240James Brokenshire: The language in the Bill has sought to modify the reference to a record being made. Is that intended to cover electronic recording of information or other means of recording the stop, rather than old-fashioned writing in a log book?

Mr. Hanson: Absolutely. Under the current legislation, we require 12 items of information to be collected. The Bill proposes that we reduce that to seven. Of those seven, four will soon be able to be assessed by direct electronic means. I would love officers to be able to do all that electronically and as speedily as possible, and we will continue to work on it. That is the long-term objective. We can now have identity, time, place and date all recorded electronically. Ethnicity, object of search and grounds for search are being recorded manually at the moment, but in due course I want them to be recorded and directly transmitted without the need for replication.

Q241James Brokenshire: Can the Minister give an indication of any guidance that the Home Office has given to the police in relation to stops and searches as a policy issue? As he will be aware, there has been a policy shift, if I may describe it that way, by the Metropolitan policecertainly in relation to the way in which they use the power in section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Has the Home Office undertaken any assessment of that use, and has it indicated to other police forces the appropriateness or otherwise of the utilisation of stops and searches?

Mr. Hanson: There are very strict criteria for the use of section 44 under the legislation. Senior officersassistant chief constable or abovehave to sign off the section 44 application. Every application lands on my desk and within 24 hours I have to agree it. I can, in theory, overturn it, so there is scrutiny by me. We look at that very carefully and through officials we regularly discuss with police forces their use of section 44, the widespread nature of it and the number of stops. With every section 44 application, I get information on how it has previously been used and the geographical area of the application being proposed. I can, in theory, not sign it and it would not apply.
As you will know, Mr. Brokenshire, the measure is also open to external scrutiny by Lord Carlisle. He makes regular reports, which have impacted upon the polices use of section 44. There is an organic flow of information and discussion. Guidance is probably the wrong word, but there is certainly heavy discussion about the usage. As you will know, in London that usage has been restricted considerably over the past 12 months because of the flow of information from my office and from Lord Carlisles office.

Q242James Brokenshire: In other words, you would say that the decision to reduce the number of stops and searches conducted under section 44 has been a consequence of the dialogue between the various bodies and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Mr. Hanson: I always take the operational judgment of police officers because they have to make operational decisions on the use of stop and search. That is their judgment. We have said clearly to them that that needs to be justified to Ministers, to external scrutiny through Lord Carlile and to the general public, who must have and retain confidence in the use of those powers. That has seen a shift over time.
You will also be aware, Sir Nicholas and Mr. Brokenshire, that there is a legal challenge in Europe, against which we are seeking to appeal. There is fluid discussion on the use of the power, but, operationally, if an officer says to the Minister, This is the area where I wish to have stop-and-search powers available, I would have to give serious thought to overruling that judgment in my ultimate sanction of signature.

Q243James Brokenshire: The Minister has rightly pointed out that there is a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in relation to section 44. Can he give us an update on the Governments position on that? I note that he says that the intention is to appeal. What time scale is he working towards? What advice is he seeking? Some argue that there are very limited grounds of appeal in such circumstances. It obviously leaves the police and, in some ways, the Home Office in a hiatus period in understanding the validity and appropriateness of the section 44 power as currently constituted.

Mr. Hanson: I very much believe that section 44 as currently constituted is a valuable power in helping to disrupt, deter, and provide a framework to defend this countryin particular major areas such as the capital cityagainst the threat of terrorism. Section 44 is a very valid tool in that armoury, which is why we are seeking to appeal. We are examining how we can appeal and, if we can, we will appeal that judgment. If we lose the appeal, we will see what we need to do to ensure we are able to protect the British people from terrorist attack. The power is a deterrent. The fact that there could be stops and searches occurring in parts of London today under orders that I have endorsed indicates the deterrent value of that activity. It is certainly a valuable tool. Amendments to the Bill that would delete section 44 completely have already been tabled. I will reject those amendments and argue strongly for the retention of that power, because I believe it is an important tool.
We are looking at the grounds and time scale for appeal. If necessary, I will report to Members during the course of the Committee about our discussions on those matters. We have not yet finalised the details but I intend, with the Home Secretarys support, to ensure that we retain the provision as far as possible.

Q244James Brokenshire: Would it be unfair to characterise the current situation as follows: the Government are assessing their right to appeal the European Court judgment, but at this stage there is no absolute determination that the Home Office will be able to appeal?

Mr. Hanson: The Government policy objective is to ensure that we retain the right to have section 44-type stop-and-search powers available to police, subject to parliamentary and independent scrutiny, as one of the tools in the armoury to defend this country against the terrorist threat. We wish to appeal the judgment and we are considering how we can do that. If we can do so, we will appeal.
Let me add one more point, Mr. Brokenshire. The judgment against us is based on the historical use of section 44, and the case itself is from 2003. There have been significant changes since then, not least of which is that the blanket use across every borough in the Metropolitan police area has ended and been replaced by specific, targeted use of the power in certain areas, which are not disclosable but which will be obvious to Members of the Committee.

Q245James Brokenshire: Do you accept, though, that the judgment is based not on practice, but on the law as drafted? Although the practice may have changed since 2003, the European Court of Human Rights judgment speaks to the law as currently constituted, so to comply with the judgment, if it is not appealed or that appeal is lost, changes to section 44 would be required.

Mr. Hanson: We would actively consider that option in the event of the appeal not being heard or being rejected. I suspect that that decision would probably be for the next Parliament, whatever happens in that scenario. However, it would certainly be the present Governments intention, under our stewardship, to maintain that position.

Q246Tom Brake: To pursue that line of questioning, why are you not using the Bill as an opportunity to respond to Lord Carliles concernsI am trying to remember the word he used in relation to the application of section 44; it was either excessive or disproportionate and Ministers are always keen to quote Lord Carlileand as an opportunity to be perhaps much clearer about the time frame and perhaps the geographic extent in which section 44 can apply?

Mr. Hanson: Both those matters are operational decisions for the police and are subject to their applications to me. Section 44 does not now say that there shall be a stop-and-search power in Greater London. Section 44 gives the power for the police to request that power in certain geographical areas. Whenever the police have a section 44 agreement, they submit a document to me that indicates the geographical area and the time scale in which they wish to operate that section 44 power. Once they have agreed the document, I then have to approve it. That then operates under the jurisdiction of the Minister, with the support from the operational decision.

Q247Tom Brake: But does that not mean that the powers application will always be open to the charge of being applied disproportionately, if there is no guidance to determine what would be a reasonable geographic distance, for instance, over which it should apply?

Mr. Hanson: My judgment has to be founded on the operational judgment of the police. The operational judgment of the police is that they wish to apply to me for approval for section 44 usage in a certain geographical area, at a certain time, based on their assessment of what they believe the threat to be to that area at that particular time. They will then undertake random stops-and-searches of individuals, vehicles, or whatever they feel to be appropriate, in that geographical area, under my authorisation, and then subject to Lord Carliles retrospective examination.

Q248Tom Brake: I understand that the police will apply for a section 44 agreement for operational reasons, but might not the tendency always be to seek something that is slightly wider than required, simply to provide a buffer, or, as the police perceive it, for safety reasons? In practice, it might be operationally acceptable, and from a civil liberties point of view more defensible, if it applied to a smaller area.

Mr. Hanson: On that point again, that is part of my role and that is part of Lord Carliles role. I look at every section 44 agreement put before me. I challenge and discuss with my officials the extent of the police request. I look at the figures for previous police involvement in stops-and-searches in those areas. I look at all the statistics. The police write a report for me, on which I then make a judgment. I could in theoryI have not yet, but I couldrefuse to accept that section 44 agreement. It is based on the operational judgment of police and there is ongoing discussionas there has been following Lord Carliles reports, and ministerial and official discussions with various forces and the Association of Chief Police Officerson the use of the geographical areas. That is why, as you will know, Mr. Brake, and as I mentioned to Mr. Brokenshire, the areas concerned in London have been shrunken considerably in the past 12 months, as have those in other police force areas.

Q249Tom Brake: I shall move on to another matter: the removal of the name and address requirement. Minister, you made an estimate, or perhaps a guesstimate, about a reduction of 20,000 police hours, is that right?

Mr. Hanson: We estimated that the stop-and-search changes will save around 200,000 hours per year. That is based on the statistics for stop-and-search for 2007-08, which is our last full year, and on our assessment of how long it will take if the five items are not recorded on every stop-and-search by an individual officer. We made that assessmentI did not do so personally, but officials didon the basis of the number of stops-and-searches in that year, less the time that it takes to do them.

Q250Tom Brake: I understand that. If the change is made, what is the estimate of the number of times that police officers will go for the shortened version? You heard Jan Berry state that, particularly in relation to stop-and-account, a new, simplified process had been offered to the police, but senior officers seemed still to be applying the full-blown approach. I am seeking guarantees that the estimate of 200,000 hours accounts for the fact that many officers will continue to collect the same information, so there will be no or a smaller time saving.

Mr. Hanson: One of the difficulties of being Police Minister in the present situation is that we have 43 forcesMr. Hogg knows about this from his days in the postand those 43 forces will operate 43 regimes. Part of our job is to improve good practice. We are driving through the stop-and-account form very hard to ensure that forces comply with our wish to stop the use of that form. Most forces are doing that, and if they are not, they will stop using them shortly.
Our estimate is that the information is not required. Forces have been consulted on it and we have discussed it with ACPO. That is the source of the time saving that we anticipate. It may be less or it may be more, but that is our judgment now. If we agree as a Committee that those five items are not necessary, and Parliament endorses it, it will save time for police officers, which in my view will be a good thing because we do not use the information that we have got. If we do not use it, why do we collect it?

Q251Mr. Flello: I want to pick up on the point about recording the name and address. Let us suppose that somebody is stopped and searched in Parliament square; their name is not recorded and what they have on them seems to be innocent enough, but 10 minutes later there is a major incident, and that little bit of evidence that may have helped in a subsequent investigation is not there. What risk analysis or assessment has been done to determine that the benefit of the reduction of 200,000 hours is huge and the risk is so small as to be negligible?

Mr. Hanson: I can give you, I hope, the assurance that these ideas are not simply a Minister or the Home Office saying that we wish it. The ideas have come from discussions with ACPO and the Police Federation, and from recommendations through consultation. They are seen as proportionate by the police family as a way to reduce bureaucracy, not put the public at risk, save police time, and let those 200,000 hours be used differentlyon something that is a better use of time for the public at large. I never say that we will eliminate all riskthat is not possible.
The principle is that, if the stop-and-search shows that something is wrong, such as the numberplate on the vehicle or the characteristics of the person, that can lead to action by the police. If the stop-and-search is simple, the police officer will record the key items that we have now: ethnicity, so we do not have disproportionate activity towards people from minority communities; the object of the search, or what we are looking for and why; the grounds for the search, or on what grounds has the individual or vehicle been stopped; the identity of the officer; the date; the time; and the place. That information gives us reasonable grounds for knowing why, where and when. If the situation that you described happened, there could be problems, but that would be in a very small number of cases. There is a balance. We do not use most of the information that we get, which I will discard if the Bill becomes law. That is a waste of police time. It is costing time. The police have asked us to try to remove those burdens, so the police are making judgments that I am trying to endorse and support.

Q252Mr. Hogg: Just three matters if I might, Mr. Hanson. As regards a section 44 application, which comes to you, I take it, in the form of a submission, how much information do you get on the reasons for operating stop-and-search within a geographical area?

Mr. Hanson: I get a large number of reasons, and I hope that Mr. Hogg will understand if I cannot necessarily also disclose to the Committee some of that information, but I get an operational view from the police on why they believe an area needs to be examined. That sometimes involves individuals. It sometimes involves physical buildings.

Q253Mr. Hogg: Is that queried by your officials before it is placed before you?

Mr. Hanson: It is. There are officials who look at the information. I make judgments upon it. I have to sign the document and I take very seriously my responsibilities in signing a document that endorses an operational decision by a police officer.

Q254Mr. Hogg: Secondly and differently, I rather share Robert Flellos view about the recording of name and address. It seems quite likely that, on occasion, there will be complaints about this. It is a good thing to know the identity, in so far as you can ascertain it, of the person searched. Would you like to comment?

Mr. Hanson: In relation to complaints, I hope that I have been able to reassure the Committee that if Mr. X were stopped in Parliament square at 2.45 pm on Thursday 28 January by a police officer who was named, at a time that was identified and in a place that was identified, and if he subsequently went to the commissioner and made a complaint about that, we would identify the police officer accordingly. [Interruption.]

Nicholas Winterton: We paused then because I was very conscious of the duties of our Hansard writer. I suspected it would have been difficult to hear what was being said over the clamour of that bell. Please continue Minister.

Mr. Hanson: I am grateful, Sir Nicholas, because I find it difficult to do two things at once as well.
The only additional point that I would throw into the pot is that the individual who would be stopped also gets a physical record of the stop-and-search in their hand, so they can use that as evidence if they wish to make a complaint.

Q255Mr. Hogg: The other question is the one that I put to the Police Federation. With regard to the ethnic origins, I think it is a good idea for the constable to record what he deems to be the ethnic origins of the person because that is important for the record, but I would have thought that asking somebody what their ethnic origins were is likely in some cases to be confrontational. That is my view and I should like to hear yours.

Mr. Hanson: Interestingly, the genesis of that provision is recommendation 61 of the Macpherson report following the death of Stephen Lawrence, where the recording of a persons self-defined ethnicity, as opposed to the assessment of the police officer, was deemed to be important. The police officer might determine someone to be a particular ethnicity and the person might deem themselves to be something else, so that self-definition essentially followed that recommendation.

Q256Mr. Hogg: On the other hand, having walked the streets as a special constable some 30 years ago, I can envisage circumstances in which posing that question may cause trouble. I would rather make my own assessment and record that in the note or on the record.

Mr. Hanson: It is an interesting question and perhaps one that we can debate in Committee. The Lawrence report looked very carefully at positive relationships between predominantly black and minority ethnic communities and the police, and one of its recommendations was this particular facet. I would be loth to change it, given the consideration that went into that report. I recommend it to the Committee, but I am happy to explore the issues in detail.

Nicholas Winterton: It is now 3 oclock. Can we move speedily to the second section, which is on gang injunctions? I think we may need a little longer on the DNA database.

Q257James Brokenshire: The gang injunction provisions mirror those that were debated in the Policing and Crime Act 2009. The Under-Secretary of State may remember some of the debates and discussions that we had in relation to those orders, and how they sought to fill a hole resulting from a court judgment on the use of section 222 injunctions under the Local Government Act 1972 in Birmingham. At that time, we debated the fact that those previous orders were not applicable to under-18s. The Government indicated that they would come back to us and have now done so. However, the Minister will be aware that we also debated what happens when the orders are breached, and the fact that, as a civil order, breach of an injunction would usually go before the normal courts rather than the youth court. That was one of the reasons why the Government stated that they were unable to introduce provisions at that time. Will the Ministers explain the Governments approach to that? Nothing in the Bill as drafted states that a breach of the orders would result in a young person going before the youth court, which seemed to be one of the primary factors in the delay in the first place. It would be helpful to understand the thinking on that.

Mr. Hanson: We have taken a decision to make some changes to ensure that a breach of the orders will result in challenging and automatic penalties. I will put the purpose behind the under-18s gang injunctions in context. We seek a limited use of the injunctions, and we want to helpoften before any criminal conviction has occurred for an under-18and engage in positive interventions, positive diversionary activity and positive support to the individual. However, we have included in the legislation an ultimate deterrent on breach leading to detention. If people undertake persistent activity in gangs, persistently break their order, or undertake an activity that is so severe that the order is breached, we need to have penalties that ultimately lead to detention.
Having considered the matter since Mr. Campbell dealt with measures on over-18s in gangs in the previous legislation, we have made some changes and have introduced the proposal in the Bill to try to meet that need. We do not want to criminalise young people; we want through early intervention to prevent their criminalisation.

Q258James Brokenshire: To be clear, are you saying that a breach of the order would result in the young person going to an adult prison or to a youth offender institution?

Mr. Hanson: If a breach of the order occurredI would hope that this would be the very, very, very, very, very last resortit would result in detention at an appropriate facility. The order is meant to be a positive for the young person, so it would mean that they were doing a diversionary activity or one of the other things that I have mentioned. If they breach, we have to have the sanction of detention. We have had this discussion, and have agreed a position, across Government on the last resort in the event of a breach. If we do not, the individuals we are dealing with, as you will know, Mr. Brokenshire, are going to be at the most challenging end of the potential criminal spectrum. That option has to be one that could ultimately be a sanction.

Q259James Brokenshire: The Minister will be well aware from reading all the briefing notes for this sitting of the statement made in relation to the previous Act that bringing in young people would require this major change in the relationship between the civil courts and minors. Yet there does not seem to be a significant change in the Bill as compared with the wording in the Act. I am trying to understand what, if anything, has changed. Was that a wrong characterisation at the time of the original Act or has something else happened that is not obvious?

Mr. Hanson: It is certainly an issue that we have had to look at. The environment in which these injunctions will be used has not changed in the intervening months. We have acknowledged that the situation remains the same. In the new schedule 5A we are giving courts the power to impose two types of order not previously available to the civil courts. They relate to issues I have referred to in my previous comments and they strengthen the deterrent power of breaching the order.
I hope the Committee will understand that it is not the Governments intention to use those detention powers or those powers on breach of order. They are there as a power. I want to see the effective use of the gang injunction so that the individual, whether convicted or not, undertakes diversionary activity to take them away from gang activity and to change their lives before they reach 18. Sadly, in some areas now, people between 14 and 18 are becoming involved in gang activity.

Q260James Brokenshire: Does the Minister accept that there is a clear link between these types of order and antisocial behaviour orders? Does this imply some weakness in antisocial behaviour orders? What is the difference between the two as he sees it?

Mr. Hanson:There are significant differences between antisocial behaviour orders and the proposed gang injunction. This is a specific order. It is designed for individuals who are actively involved in gangs, who are very often on the edge of criminality, who may be drawn into further acts of violence or gang activity and who may be identified by the police, by youth workers, by youth offending teams, by other agencies and by their families. The application of this injunction is a severe measure which is different from antisocial behaviour orders in a range of ways, which I could go through over many hours. It is designed in specific instances to look at that activity as a whole. As I have said, if the power is agreed by Parliament we will pilot this, probably in a major UK city for a six-month period starting as soon as we can once the Bill is enacted, to look at those issues and to compare and contrast how it works in practice.

Q261James Brokenshire: How many adult gang injunctions have been given since the previous Act become law?

Mr. Hanson:None, as yet. We had that discussion at the sitting the other day. The legislation received Royal Assent only a few months ago. We are working through that at the moment. The power is available. That is not a failure of the power. The power is there for very specific cases where individuals are involved in gang activity and where this order for adults or, if agreed by the Committee and the House, for younger people, can make a difference in their lives to drive them away from that activity.

Q262James Brokenshire: My reason for restating that point was that the Minister has said that he wishes to pilot the youth injunctions for six months. Has there been any piloting of the adult injunction, as that might have been helpful to inform the approach and policy in relation to these new injunctions?

Mr. Hanson:I am looking at my colleague because the adult injunctions were taken through when I was in the Ministry of Justice as opposed to the Home Office. My understanding is that there was no piloting of the adult injunctions. I have chosen to pilot the youth injunctions for younger gang members for the simple reason that it is a complex area. We are dealing with very vulnerable people. We want to try something that works. We need legislative cover for that. This is what this is about. The pilot will look at the various challenges. If it is successful, works, is useful, makes a difference, helps agencies and changes lives, we will look at extending it.

Q263Mr. Flello: The evidence we heard on Tuesday suggested, as you have Minister, that this is a power of last resort. In the guidance issued on this power, will you make it clear that, if it is to be used, there must be a documented progression of previous activitieseverything from the acceptable behaviour contractsand that all these measures have been looked at, if not used, and that there is a proper documented pattern to it? It should not be used by a council that wants just to dip in and out of the tool box, rather than properly using all the tools that are in there.

Mr. Hanson: I cannot give a totally satisfactory answer. The first time anybody comes into the sphere of this type of legislation could well be under the gang injunction. It could be that somebody has not come before the courts, has not been involved in an ASBO or parenting contract, but has got involved in a gang and is vulnerable to being sucked into gang activity. It may be the first intervention that individual could face.
The Bill will define clearly both what a gang is, under the Policing and Crime Act 2009, and the options around the diversionary activity and the disposals that could be put in relation to the injunction. I cannot guarantee that it will not be a progression. I can say it will be used only where there are specific circumstances around the involvement of a gang.

Q264Mr. Flello: In that case, how vigorously, in guidance or whatever form, will the requirement be on local authority partners to ensure that matters such as diversionary activities are properly in place? A criticism I have of section 30 orders is that the police do their part enforcing section 30, but when a local authority comes to do its bit, sadly, in certain cases it is very poor and sometimes completely lacking. If this intervention is designed to get a young person away from a gang environment, it must ensure that all those other facilities and support mechanisms are put in place.

Mr. Hanson: This will be undertaken in partnership with a range of agencies: local authorities, youth offending teams, support from a range of organisations. Through the order we are trying to put a legally binding commitment on an individual to undertake activity that will help in diverting them from the activity that we are concerned about. The need for that support across the board is vital and that partnership is there. As I mentioned earlier, we will be piloting this in a major UK city, if legislation is approved. We will learn lessons in the first six months of that pilot. If it works and is effective, we will take it forward with partner agencies.

Q265Mr. Flello: To conclude on that point, my concern would be that the major city that you might have in mind may have an extremely good track record of involving the local authority. That may not be the case in future roll-outs of the pilot if it is successful.
Given that 14 is older than the age of criminal responsibility, do you envisage having to come back to the House, if the pilot is successful, to reduce the age? Might it not be better to address it here and now in the Bill, and reduce the age to that of criminal responsibility?

Mr. Hanson: It is not the Governments intention at the moment to have an age lower than 14. We have made an assessment, rightly or wrongly, that the type of gang activity that we have will be commencing at the earliest around the 14-to-17 age range. I know we heard evidence earlier in the week from one witness who indicated that people were involved in gangs when they were perhaps as young as 10 or 11. I will happily keep this under review. We have put this in place because we think it is proportionate, helpful and will hit the age when people are predominantly involved in gangs.

Q266Tom Brake: Some months ago the Home Affairs Committee conducted an inquiry into knife crime. As part of the inquiry, we looked at the issue of gangs. It was very clear that the membership of some gangs is fluidwho is in, who is out; there are a lot of people on the periphery and so on. How confident are Ministers that it will be possible to identify people who are clearly genuine gang members, rather than people who are on the periphery of gang activity?

Mr. Hanson: We will, first, focus particularly on the Policing and Crime Act 2009, which determines what is a gang. There is a clear definition in that Act. We will work with agencies that look at vulnerable individuals. Those vulnerable individuals will be people who are on the edge of the gang. Gangs are defined under the Act as having at least three people, a name, an emblem, a colour, other characteristics, or as being associated with a particular geographical area. I cannot say that young person X or young person Y will necessarily be a member of a gang, but the criteria are there. The people who know the area will know who those people are, and whether it is the head teacher, youth worker, police officer or a parent, that criterion can be defined by an individual who is involved in that. The determination will be undertaken by those agencies on whether an application should be made for the order.

Q267Tom Brake: In cases where a detention order might be applied, there is clearly a risk that if you take a gang member out of a gang, they might end up in an environment where gangs are also rife. How will that issue be addressed?

Mr. Hanson: I cannot emphasise this enough to the Committee. Detention, in the event of a breach of the order, is the absolute last resort. If somebody is detained and sent to a youth offender institution because they breached the order, the order, in my view, has failed. It is the absolute last resort. The order is there as a deterrent, but it is not the purpose. We are not seeking to detain people because they are gang members without criminal convictions; we are seeking to divert people from gang activity.
In my former role as Prisons and Youth Justice Minister, I was responsible for all young persons facilities. There is a gang culture in some of those facilities. Gangs form from people who were not in gangs outside, because that is a natural thing that happens in those types of establishments, and we have to be aware of that. There are strategies to support prison staff in helping to break that. However, if someone goes to prison or a youth offender institution for breaching the order, the order will have failed. Our job is to make sure that we use the order as an effective diversion.

Nicholas Winterton: I have two more questions under this heading. May I suggest that we try to speed up just a little, as we have to finish close to 4 oclock and we have the DNA database, domestic violence protection orders, and the return to wheel clamping as subjects on todays agenda?

Mr. Hanson: If it is helpful, Sir Nicholas, I will be taking questions on DNA with Alan Campbell. I will deal with the domestic violence orders and Mr. Campbell will deal with wheel clamping. We can take those subjects in whichever order you wish to take them. If you would like a break from my voice, you could discuss wheel clamping with Mr. Campbell.

Nicholas Winterton: You are lulling me into a certain sense, I have to confess. I call Douglas Hogg.

Q268Mr. Hogg: It is a brief point. It relates to how the breaching of the injunction will rank in a persons criminal record. Will they be deemed to be convictions? Will they be shown on the antecedents, so that when somebody subsequently stands trial, if they do, they will form part of the antecedents?

Mr. Hanson: I have indicated that an individual could get a gang injunction without having undertaken a criminal activity. In that case, the injunction would be recorded and would not be deemed to be a criminal conviction in that sense. The injunction is there to provide an alternative diversionary activity. The breach of an injunction would be a serious offence, is subject to serious penalties and would be recorded. But the diversionary activity is meant to be something that, even if an individual has not committed a crime, could be used.

Q269Mr. Hogg: I suppose then, as often happens in criminal cases, if the defence counsel asks, Have you had any previous problems with the police? the individual will have to answer, Yes, I was the subject of an injunction, albeit no criminal proceedings were brought.

Mr. Hanson: If it will help the Committee, I will happily check with my officials after this session. When we reach the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, we can discuss those matters and I will give clarification then, rather than say something that is not strictly accurate now.

Douglas Hogg: Fine by me.

Nicholas Winterton: That is a very helpful offer from the Minister and I am sure that Douglas Hogg accepts it.

Q270Andrew Rosindell: I have a very brief questionjust a point for clarification. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary referred to dangerous dogs as potentially being part of this legislation. What proposals may be included in the legislation to deal with that area of concern? Alan Johnson specifically mentioned it when he spoke on Second Reading.

Mr. Hanson: There are ongoing discussions with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look in general terms at whether further legislation is required. The Home Secretary said that at Home Office questions, and we are looking at the issue of dogs in the round. In relation to the legislation before the Committee, the word weapon could be defined under legislation as being a dog. That is the clarification the Home Secretary made on Second Reading, but we are looking in the round at whether we need further measures on dogs, in which I know you take a great interest, although not necessarily for this Bill, given where we are in the parliamentary cycle.

Q271James Brokenshire: Obviously, the Minister will acknowledge the volume increase in the number of profiles on the DNA database. Why does he think that the proportion of DNA detections has gone down given the increase in numbers?

Mr. Hanson: Let me first look at the figures. Since April 2001, 152,700 convictions were helped by the DNA database, of which nearly 2,000 were for serious crimes, including murder, manslaughter and rape, and another 6,500 were for other sexual and violent offences. Crime is falling. Although it did not get much publicity, last week I recorded an 8 per cent. reduction in recorded crime over the previous year overall. The number of individuals on the database is increasing. I think that there are proportionate uses of it. I am content that the database still fulfils a valuable role in helping us to detect crime, even if sometimes crimes are detected without DNA.

Q272James Brokenshire: I press the Minister on this issue because although I hear what he says about the aggregate numbers, which we can debate in a different forum, the proportion of crimes solved by DNA detections has pretty much stayed the same or has slightly gone down, when the expectation might have been that the more profiles you put on the database, the greater the likelihood that through technology and matching, the number of DNA detections would go up. Is that in line with what the Home Office was expecting?

Mr. Hanson: The numbers fluctuate. My colleague, the Under-Secretary has just indicated that the numbers are likely to rise. It is a debateable point, but from my perspective, if the DNA database solved just one crime, I would be content with its operation. I think that it is a valuable tool. If I look at the types of activity and the cases I could quoteas I will during other Committee sittingsthat we have brought to justice, I can see that it has a very valuable purpose. The decisions we have taken on the Bill are about making judgments about how we make it proportionate, transparent and give people an understanding of their rights, and what we understand by that. Following the consultation, we made changes to our original proposals.

Q273James Brokenshire: To make the point, I am not denying the importance of having a DNA database, but as the Minister will understand, it is a question of proportionality in the retention of records on it, which is the key aspect of this debate. The point, which I think the Minister has confirmed, is that the detection rate has gone down, albeit slightly, but it has not gone up or reflected in any way the increase in the number of profiles on the database.
A separate point is the evidence base that the Government have sought to use to justify the six-year period. As the Minister will know, the researchpreviously described as evidenceconducted on behalf of the Jill Dando Institute was not quite what the Government thought it was when they published it and sought to justify their 12-year proposals. Can the Minister give any background information on the status of the Governments current document, DNA retention policy: Re-arrest hazard rate analysis? Who produced the document?

Mr. Hanson: It is a Home Office document and we commissioned it. I will put it in context. We produced a document in May last year that indicated that we were consulting on what we felt was proportionate activity at the time. We looked at the 12-year figure and we had a consultation. We have had the judgments in between and have determined that we want to be proportionate and fair while still using DNA, including that of innocent people, to help us ensure that we get convictions, fight crime, bring people to justice and give justice to victims.
Following the consultation, we have settled on a period of six years for DNA profiling retention. I think that is fair and proportionate. It is in line with what we believe the out of boundary judgments will be, and it is in line with our evidence base, which Mr. Campbell referred to, in relation to re-arrest rates. Looking at the Scottish model, I think that convictions can be made using the six-year period that will be valued by the people who seek them, such as relatives of victims. I think it is proportionate. Our debate in Committee will centre on the difference between three years and six years, violence and sexual activity in the three-year period, and other activities. There are legitimate debates in relation to that, but we have tried to get it as right as we can by pushing it as far as we can, based on evidence and judgment.

Q274James Brokenshire: Obviously, there was some concern about the previous evidence, which is why I seek clarification. The re-arrest hazard rate analysis document is an internally produced Home Office document and it has not been peer reviewed.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Alan Campbell): Yes it has.

Q275James Brokenshire: Okay. Perhaps we could get some clarification about who prepared the document and who reviewed it. That sort of information would be very helpful to understand the basis of the document and how it might be viewed. Mr. Campbell might like to comment on that.

Mr. Campbell: It might be better if we write to you with the detail. The document was produced internally, but it has been independently peer reviewed by two leading academics in the field. Clearly, there are some issues, but nothing that detracts from the broad lessons of the original research.

James Brokenshire: That would be helpful in understanding how the document was prepared, the decisions that were taken, who prepared it and who conducted the peer review. As the Minister will appreciate, there were previously some sensitivities.

Mr. Campbell: I undertake to get as much information to the Committee as possible, but it has been very much work in progress.

Q276James Brokenshire: That is very helpful. On the evidence base and analysis, what consideration has the Minister, or his officials, given to the analysis conducted by Professor Jim Fraser of Strathclyde universitys centre for forensic science?

Mr. Hanson: We have certainly looked at that material. Mr. Campbell and I are jointly dealing with the issues on a day-to-day basis. We have looked at it and have taken some analysis of it. I still stick to the fact that, ultimately, it boils down to our judgment based on our research and our understanding. That is where the Bill is coming from. It is a judgment argument, and there will be some debate about that, but we are using our peer group-reviewed evidence to make those judgments.

Mr. Campbell: Although the Fraser review was useful in terms of looking at the Scottish model, nothing much appeared to come from it that would give a clear steer on retention periods. The evidence that we produced, about which I have given you a commitment, is based on more recent evidence, which was not available when the Scots decided to go in their own direction. It is interesting to note that when we mentioned the Scottish model, one response was to rush to defend its evidential base, but the reality is that it was not anything like the evidential base we have obtained since.

Mr. Hanson: To back up what Mr. Campbell said, the evidence on the convictions that have occurred, based on the potential of our model of between three years and six years, as I reported to the Committee in an earlier intervention, is that we have had about 23 convictions that would not have happened had the Scottish model been in operation. Again, a judgment has to be made, and my judgment is on the side of victims and ensuring convictions, not on the side of avoiding them.

Q277James Brokenshire: Will the Minister confirm that the hazard rate analysis is heavily caveated? Perhaps that is why he talks about judgment rather than hard evidence. Evidence is difficult to find, even in relation to the report that was produced for the Home Office.

Mr. Hanson: The hazard rate analysis indicates strongly that there is a tendency to reoffend during the period from the potential offence or taking of DNA through to the endin this case, an eight-year period. After six years, the ability to offend or reoffend is less likely. That is a judgment.
The six years is, we think, proportionate. It is less than the 12 years we proposed in our initial consultation. We can get that through, in our discussions with the Council of Ministers. It means, yes, that there may be people who will have had their DNA taken in year 1 who would never have reoffended throughout the whole six years, and there will be people who reoffend at different levels throughout that time. It is proportionate, and it is based on that evidence. Ultimately, it is based on our judgment.

James Brokenshire: I am sure the Minister will confirm that even the report indicated that there was a rangethat it could be less than six years. Is the Minister saying that it is a question of judgment?

Mr. Campbell: Yes, it could be less than six years. Even if most people go on to offend within the next two to three years, it still leaves a significant number who could go on to offend later on. We drew a line at six years, because a line has to be drawn somewhere. It is not the case that you can draw from the early arrest evidence an idea of the kind of crime that people might go on to commit. There is no clear link. One therefore has to make a judgment at some point.
Referring to the available evidence upon which the research was conducted, there was some discussion about why we used arrest to arrest. The reality is that we are talking about a limited time scale. Whoever does the research, we are talking about a limited amount of evidence because the database has been around for a limited time. Using arrest to arrest gives a bigger number of people, as opposed to bringing in convictions. You will be aware that if you are involved in the legal process it can take quite a long time for it to come to fruition. We believe that it would have skewed the evidence, which arrest to arrest does not. Whichever way we look at it, there are limitations on any piece of evidence.

James Brokenshire: I am sure the Minister will accept that simply because someone has been arrested a second time, it does not mean that they will have been convicted as a consequence of that arrest. That is one of the imperfect elements of the analysis.

Mr. Campbell: Yes, and I am sure that it is imperfect to people looking in from the outside, as I said in my first point of clarification. Unfortunately, if one finds oneself as part of that groupif you have been arrested and you do not go on to offendyou are still part of that group, and the available research says you will be more likely to go on to offend than the rest of the population. We believe that is significant, which makes it worth innocents being on the DNA database.

Q278James Brokenshire: Mr. Hanson said that in the Committee sittings, he would bring forward various examples of cases that he suggested would not have been solved if the Scottish model had been adopted. Could he produce details? Obviously it is a question of assessing some of the facts and circumstances and the role that DNA might have played. Sometimes it is not necessarily as clear-cut as might be presented.

Mr. Hanson: I would be very happy to give those examples to the Committee, but it might be better if I wrote to hon. Members detailing, as part of an annexe, four or five good examples when DNA has been essential in securing a conviction, and when under our proposed model would be the right thing to do. That would be useful for discussion. Then hon. Members can refer to those examples in Committee and, if they wish, interrogate us on them.

Nicholas Winterton: Again, the Committee is grateful to the Minister of State. It is certainly very satisfactory from my point of view in the Chair. Does it satisfy Mr. James Brokenshire?

James Brokenshire: I do not know whether Mr. Burns wants to intervene.

Nicholas Winterton: Are you seeking to intervene, Mr. Burns?

Simon Burns: Yes, I am on a point of clarification. The offer sounds extremely helpful and it would be extremely useful to the Committee, but only if we get the letter before we deal with DNA in the Bill. Given the time that Ministers tend to take to respond to MPs letters, we do not really want it for the Report stage.

Nicholas Winterton: I do not want to enter into extraneous matters, Minister, but I think you have gathered the point that Simon Burns made and I am confident that the letter will reach us in time. I look to you for a nod.

Mr. Hanson: Sir Nicholas, I will put a letter on the House of Commons board by close of play on Monday evening.

Nicholas Winterton: I am sure that is more than satisfactory to the Committee.

Q279James Brokenshire: This is my final question. The Minister will probably recall that on Second Reading a point was raised about an assertion by the Prime Minister that 114 murders were solved as a result of previously innocent peoples DNA being checked. Is that figure still correct? Does the Minister stand by it and can he provide some further details?

Mr. Hanson: The answer is yes and if the Committee so wished, I could do so.

Nicholas Winterton: If the Minister will do that I am sure it will satisfy the Committee.

Q280Tom Brake: Dr. Wallace from GeneWatch raised the issue of false matches. As she did so, I think I could see Ministers pooh-poohing her comments under their breath. Could the Minister respond to her argument, which seemed to be sound? Often DNA is degraded, so it does not have the 10 points that are taken as markers. When the DNA database is extended to include that of other European countries from 2012 onwards, there is potential for a larger number of mismatches to occur, notwithstanding the one in a billion rule that applies currently to DNA that is intact or complete. Is there, as Dr. Wallace suggested, a risk of significant numbers of mismatches?

Mr. Campbell: I think we started from the perspective of what is sometimes called the birthday paradox, which is the likelihood of members of the Committee sharing a birthday. The numbers involved, however, should not be compared. As Gary Pugh made very clear, you are talking about a significant number of numbers for each individual profile on the database. The likelihood of people getting a wrong match nowI do not think it would change significantly even if the database continued to grow at its current paceis not mathematically significant.

Q281Tom Brake: That clearly is the Governments view, but can I ask Ministers to watch that area carefully? I think Dr. Wallace referred to the Germans having slightly different or lower standards and therefore increasing the potential for mismatches.

Mr. Campbell: Let us make this clear. Without question, we lead the field on DNA, which is why we are coming to some of these issues before other countries do. We are certainly conscious of the need to make sure that the governance is right and that the standards are as high as we can make them.
I should add a caveat that DNA is only one important tool in the detection of crime. I do not believe that a court would accept a DNA match as the only piece of evidence on which to convict someone. However, it is often the hook on which the rest of the investigations begins and then hangs.

Q282Tom Brake: I am not certain, but I think that Mr. Hanson was going to pick up the question whether deletion of DNA automatically triggers deletion from the police national computer, or whether, as he argued, there is no link between the two and that therefore there will not be an automatic deletion. Dr. Wallaces position was that DNA deletion might still leave the PNC entry.

Mr. Hanson: If Mr. Brake will allow me, Sir Nicholas, I said that I would refer back to that by the time we reached Committee scrutiny stage. I will ensure that we have clarification of that point when we reach that stage.
I can say generally that we are currently working up an IT solution for action at the end of the proposed six-year period that we believe will be in place shortly, in the event of legislative approval, that will ensure that DNA will be deleted automatically at the end of that period.

Q283Tom Brake: Of that much we are aware, but the question related to the PNC.

Mr. Hanson: I will clarify those points by the time we reach Committee scrutiny stage.

Q284Tom Brake: I am pleased that an IT solution will be available shortly. They always areand they are always on time and on budget.
The final issue, which was raised by Isabella Sankey, is national security exceptions in relation to DNA. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us in what cases national security exemptions or exceptions might apply and how widely they could apply.

Mr. Hanson: Again, we have determined in the legislation that if an individual has been convicted of a terrorist offence the conviction lasts for life. If an individual has been suspected of a terrorist offence, they are subject to the six-year rule under the proposed legislation, as now, but a police officer may wish to apply to extend that six-year period for a further year, subject to judicial oversight. That is clearly established as part of our proposals, and I hope that the Committee will support those in due course for national security reasons.

Q285Tom Brake: Isabella Sankey said:
Somebody could be arrested for the most trivial offence and have their DNA indefinitely retained, because of the national security exceptionbecause the police cite national security.[Official Report, Crime and Security Public Bill Committee, 26 January 2010; c. 72; Q159.]
Is it the Ministers understanding that that will not be so?

Mr. Hanson: The police will make operational judgments that have to be discussed and confirmed in court, ultimately, with judicial oversight. They will make those operational judgments based on their knowledge of individuals. Police officers have mentioned this. Sir Hugh Orde said that there were individuals without convictions in Northern Ireland who were well known to the police to be involved in potential terrorist activity. The same could be true of Islamist extremist-inspired terrorism, through to other individuals involved in animal rights extremist terrorism and right-wing extremist-inspired terrorism. It would be an operational decision based on whether the individual is known to the police. The police would make a case to extend that retention period, under strict regulation, beyond the six-year period for those reasons.

Q286Mr. Hogg: I have just two questions for you, Mr. Hanson. First, just refresh my memory about the Enniskillen case. My recollection of the Northern Ireland Enniskillen case was that there was a positive mismatch and that somebody who clearly was not guilty had DNA that matched the DNA on the explosives.
Secondly, now that low-copy DNA is increasingly available and used, is there a case for saying that DNA evidence by itself should not be sufficient to justify a conviction, but that there should always be corroborative evidence?

Mr. Hanson: I was involved in the Enniskillen case as the Northern Ireland Minister who was dealing with those issues at that time. There were some difficulties with the DNA and the DNA evidence. A range of factors led to those difficulties. Some of it was down to the way in which the DNA had been stored. It was not, therefore, a simple, straightforward mismatch; there were some problems with the suitability of the evidence. It is best that I reflect on those points. Rather than talk from memory about the details of events that are now three or four years old, I think that we should look at them and, if need be, refer to them in our later discussions in Committee.
For me, evidence is about what a jury ultimately believes leads them to being beyond reasonable doubt. That could be solely DNA evidence, if that DNA evidence was proved to be sufficient for a jury to come to a conclusion. It could be further evidence, as Mr. Hogg outlined. Ultimately, it is for the prosecution to bring a case and it is for a jury to listen to that case, including the defence of that case, and to come to a judgment. I believe that DNA can very often be supportive material for circumstantial evidence, because, as I think Sir Hugh Orde said, whatever else DNA does, it can place somebody at a certain place at a certain time. Equally, in some cases that I will write to the Committee about DNA has been the defining evidence that has established that there is no other way that an individual could have been involved other than by being at the scene of the crime and ultimately undertaking the offence for which they are convicted.

Nicholas Winterton: We now move to the next sector for discussion, perhaps quite briefly, which is domestic violence protection orders.

James Brokenshire: Sir Nicholas, given the limited time that we have available to us, I wonder whether we might seek to get questions in now on the remaining parts of the Bill, because I fear that otherwise we will run out of time to ask them.

Nicholas Winterton: We may well do. Is it the view of the Committee that there are no major questions to put to the Ministers on domestic violence protection orders?

Q287James Brokenshire: I have one question on those orders, Sir Nicholas. I am just seeking a point of clarification.
Mr. Hanson will remember that on Second Reading there was a question about the sanctions that might apply for breach of a domestic violence protection order. He said at the time that he would quote the section and provide the details of the relevant provision. A number of people are still concerned about that matter and it might be helpful to put those details on the record, just to clarify that matter.

Mr. Hanson: The sanction for breaching a domestic violence protection order is currently set at a fine of up to £5,000 and a term of imprisonment of up to two months.

Q288James Brokenshire: Where is that stated in the Bill?

Mr. Hanson: If I recall correctly, on Second Reading I referred back to a previous piece of legislation, which indicated the penalty for a breach of an order. That is recorded in Hansard in the report of the Second Reading debate. I do not have the reference to that previous piece of legislation in my head at the moment, but if members of the Committee wish to refresh their memory of that Second Reading debate there will be a reference in my winding-up speech to that previous piece of legislation, under which breach of an order incurs a penalty of two months imprisonment or a fine of £5,000.

Nicholas Winterton: Is that answer satisfactory?

James Brokenshire: Yes. Thank you.

Nicholas Winterton: We move on to the last section that I have highlighted, which we dealt with in our discussions with our first panel of witnesses this afternoon. That section deals with wheel-clamping, which is, of course, a highly contentious and somewhat sensitive issue.

Q289James Brokenshire: What came out of our evidence session on wheel-clamping earlier this afternoon was the need for clarity on the interrelationship between the Security Industry Authority, local authorities responsibilities and the relevant codes of practice and those bodies that might be responsible for those codes of practice.
I know that the Minister will probably have taken in a number of points from that last evidence session that he will want to follow up on, but it would be helpful at this stage to hear his thoughts on how that interrelationship should work.

Mr. Campbell: We want a system that is effective but we also want to keep it simple. This is a terrible area of cowboy activityactivity that we want to stamp out. We asked the SIA if it would consider the possibility of licensing companies, because it already licenses individuals. As part of getting a licence from the SIA, there will be a code of conduct, which will cover many of the areas of common concern and will be the subject of further consultation. We hope to introduce the code through statutory instrument, rather than in the Bill, because over a period of time some of those conditions might change, not unlike the mandatory code for alcohol that is currently being introduced.
We looked at a number of models, including local authorities and having other associations involved, but we want to keep it simple. We do not believe that there would be great benefit in introducing a role for a trade association simply because we do not want to make it over-bureaucratic. We are not convinced of the efficacy of some of the existing trade associations. The code of practice would therefore be enforced by the SIA in one way. It would also depend uponas I suspect we will get to laterwhether there is another way of redressing grievance through an appeals procedure.

Q290James Brokenshire: On reading the Bill regarding licensing, I note that
The conditions that may be prescribed...include conditions requiring the person to whom the licence is granted to be a member of a nominated body or scheme.
I think the Minister is saying that would be a separate SIA-nominated scheme, rather than a regulatory arrangement through a trade body. Is that correct?

Mr. Campbell: Yes.

Q291James Brokenshire: To be clear, that scheme will include provisions relating to signage, levels of fine, a number of the issues highlighted in the original Home Office consultation document.

Mr. Campbell: Yes. We would expect it to include charging. Of course, we are not just talking about clamping; there are associated issues. Time is an important factorfor example, it is entirely unacceptable for clampers to wait around the corner until you leave the vehicle, and then clamp your car and tow it away within 10 minutes.
From the very useful discussion we had today, it has been confirmed that signage is absolutely crucial. Signage is not just about what you cannot do but how to get the information that you need should you have a grievance. There will be a process for redress and appeal. Method of payment was mentioned. Too often that is required in cash, and amounts to little more than extortion. There also needs to be a complaints procedure and other elements. Those are the areasand I am sure there othersthat the code of conduct will address.

Q292Andrew Rosindell: The earlier evidence was very helpful. There were three specific points on which the witnesses found consensus: first, that land should be registered; secondly, that there should be a code of conduct and that it should be the same as the one local authorities have to abide by; and thirdly, that there was a need for signage. Can all three areas be incorporated?

Mr. Campbell: Signage certainly can. As for the code of conduct, we would want to consult on that. I am pretty confident that, when we get a code of conduct, it will have the best parts of what pertains to local authorities, but we may be able to get a better system that incorporates much of what happens with local authorities. I listened carefully to the discussion with Professor King the other side of the matter, which is what you do with land. We were not convinced that that was necessary because we want to focus on the companies. If we are going to tolerate companies, they have to abide by a strict code of conduct in the rules, otherwise they will lose their licences and they will be out of business.

Q293Andrew Rosindell: But will the code of conduct be in the Bill?

Mr. Campbell: To have a code of conduct will be in the Bill but the details of the code of conduct will come in through statutory instrument. To bring in land complicates matters unnecessarily. That was the point that the councillor picked up. As soon as you introduce local authoritiesalthough you can learn their best practiceand introduce a register of land or ask them to police it, there is a cost. We do not want that cost to be borne by the taxpayer, local or national. We want the cost of the scheme of regulation to be borne mainly by the companies. They are the causing the problem in the first place.

Q294Mr. Hogg: I stepped out of the room briefly, so you may have answered this question. Having listened to the debate this afternoon, I asked myself why we do not simply outlaw this form of wheel-clamping. I got the impression from those on the panel that they would be content with that and I cannot identify yet any principled reason why we should not.

Mr. Campbell: There is a principled reason and a practical reason. The principled reason is that private landowners have a right to protect their land from people who would park on it. This debate focuses on the practices of the companies, but of course the situation would be helped if people did not park where they should not park. There is an argument for using methods other than wheel-clampingyou could have a ticketing solution, for examplebut the reality is that sometimes a mechanism is needed to remove cars or deter people from parking on private land.
We are not talking just about a piece of wasteland that may be seen as a cash cow for clampers. We are talking about residential homes, hospitals and all sorts of buildings and premises that need to have a mechanism in place to regulate parking. If you did not have clamping, another suggestionperhaps we shall get to it on another day and another Billinvolves ticketing, but ticketing brings with it all these issues, too. What we are seeking to do in the Bill, if we are going to have clamping, is to have a much better regulated system, because the other side of course is that there are some clamping companies that do act responsibly and do a useful job.

Q295Mr. Hogg: I take the point that people are entitled to protect their private land. I feel strongly about that, as it happens, but clamping causes or can cause very severe disadvantages to the person clamped, and in the spectrum of disadvantage, ticketing is a much lower level disadvantage than clamping. If you were clamped in the middle of the night, you would be very angry indeed. One does have to look at it in the balance, and it seems to me probable that clamping on private land is the wrong side of the line, although I take the point that people are entitled to protect their own land.

Mr. Campbell: I think that ticketing brings with it a whole range of problems, and we have talked to the Department for Transport about what might happen there. It is not a panacea. However, I also think that people would perhaps see clamping slightly differently if we were able to rid the industry of those who use entirely unacceptable methods. To some extent, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We shall have to see what the effect is of the code of conduct that we propose, which is why we very much want to involve the industry, local authorities and the public in the consultation on what is wanted in the code of conduct, but it will have to be a tough code of conduct.

Nicholas Winterton: We have finished the items on our list, but I suspect that Mr. James Brokenshire wishes to raise another matter.

Q296James Brokenshire: I have a couple of quick points. The first is on the question of universal jurisdiction. There has been some suggestion that the Government will seek to deal with universal jurisdiction in this Bill. The Tzipi Livni case is obviously one that people have been looking at. I do not know whether the Minister can give any update on whether that is the case, because it obviously will have a bearing on the consideration in Committee.
Secondly, we are awaiting details of the compensation scheme for victims of terrorism overseas. Again, it is important to put on record where the Government have got to with that, to allow us proper consideration.

Mr. Hanson: I shall very shortly table provisions and shall write to all members of the Committee, including you, Sir Nicholas, and Mr. Cook, with details of the provisions that we are tabling on compensation for victims of terrorism overseas. As the Home Secretary said on Second Reading, that provision will apply from 18 January 2010 if approved by Parliament and will be based on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority scheme, which operates in UK circumstances. We are also considering, separately to that, what compensation support we can give for individuals who have been victims of terrorism from 2002 to date. That is under separate consideration.
In relation to universal jurisdiction, the Government do not propose at this time to table amendments, but that remains under consideration. In the event of that situation changing, I will certainly write to hon. Members, informing them immediately.

Mr. Campbell: One final point. In Mr. Hansons letter that deals with other matters, there will also be details of another amendment that we will table on wheel-clamping, which will put in the Bill the fact that we will have an independent appeals system.

Q297Mr. Hogg: On wheel-clamping?

Mr. Campbell: Yes.

Nicholas Winterton: This is an extremely appropriate time to end, with that last comment from the Under-Secretary. The Committee will sit again, under the chairmanship of Frank Cook, next Tuesday at 10.30 in the morning. The sitting will be in Committee Room 12.
I thank all hon. Members for their staying power and the way in which they have involved themselves in the questioning, which has been most helpful to the Committee. I thank, on behalf of the rest of the Committee, the Ministers for the frank and helpful way in which they have dealt with all the questions put to them.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. (Mr. Watts.)

Adjourned till Tuesday 2 February at half-past Ten oclock.